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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28120665">The Next Amazing Thing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiegirl/pseuds/cookiegirl'>cookiegirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Waitress - Bareilles/Nelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Baking, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:55:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,335</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28120665</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiegirl/pseuds/cookiegirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Lulu bakes a cake by herself, Jenna is absolutely not allowed into the kitchen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Next Amazing Thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts">Missy</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time Lulu bakes a cake by herself, Jenna is absolutely, completely, <em>totally</em> not allowed into the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Not even for a minute!” Lulu tells her. “Not even to check up on me!” Her hands are on her hips and her feet are planted firmly apart on the tiled floor. She is a tiny, imperious emperor in the vast kingdom of their seven foot by eight foot kitchen. An emperor wearing an apron with pink unicorns on it, and the child’s chef’s hat that Becky bought her for her eighth birthday, which is still too big and keeps slipping down over her right eye.</p>
<p>“What about when you need to put it in the oven?” Jenna says reasonably, trying not to laugh.</p>
<p>Lulu heaves a gigantic sigh. “I don’t have to use the oven for this one! Or any sharp knives! I can do it all by myself! Dawn read the recipe and she said so!”</p>
<p>“Okay, okay.” If Dawn says it’s safe, it’s safe; Jenna would trust her with her life, and her daughter’s life, and the wellbeing of her kitchen. “So I’ll just wait out here until you’re done?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Lulu’s nose scrunches up the way it does when she’s thinking hard, and then she nods. “You can sit on the couch. And watch TV. I’ll bring you a drink.” </p>
<p>She marches forward, grabs Jenna’s hand and leads her to the couch. She even puts a cushion behind her back. A couple of minutes later, Lulu presents her with a glass of cold milk. </p>
<p>“Put your feet up,” Lulu says sternly, before disappearing back into the kitchen, and Jenna can’t help but smile. She should take advantage of this time really; it’s not often that she gets to sit down in between working at the diner and taking care of Lulu. She curls her feet up underneath her, but she doesn’t turn on the TV. She wants to be able to hear if any potentially disastrous noises come from the kitchen.</p>
<p>And there is certainly a lot of banging. Cupboard doors slamming, and dishes clattering, and tins opening. Lulu has always been a whirlwind of noise and activity, even as a baby. Jenna can see her now as a ten-month-old, sitting on the floor in the corner of the kitchen, banging pots and pan lids with a wooden spoon, making something that sounded like music to the child and sounded like a migraine to Jenna. But Jenna knows too well what it’s like to be told to be quiet; she has always known, since she was a child herself, trying not to make too much noise rustling the flour packet as she measured out ingredients with her mom, trying not to disturb her father’s football game on TV, trying not to remind him that she and her mom existed. So Jenna never told Lulu to be quiet, and Lulu never learned to be afraid to breathe too loudly, and Jenna never regretted it for a second, even when her head hurt.</p>
<p>After a few minutes, there’s a dull thud, and then another.</p>
<p>“Everything okay in there?” Jenna calls.</p>
<p>Lulu opens the door a crack and peeks through, her cheeks pink and her nose dusted in flour. "Everything's great! Everything's perfect! Enjoy your milk!" She turns around and before the door swings shut Jenna catches a glimpse of Lulu's small rolling pin grasped firmly in her hand, the wood carefully painted purple and sealed by Ogie last Christmas when he and Dawn couldn't find the purple rolling pin Lulu had asked for in the stores.</p>
<p>There are a few more thuds, each accompanied by a gentle crunch, and Jenna realizes that it's the sound of cookies being crushed by a rolling pin. Lulu's done that with Jenna's help so many times, to make a cookie crumb pie crust, and Jenna feels a sudden stab of pride in her chest. Her baby's growing up. It seems like no time at all since Jenna was showing her how to stir cake batter for the first time, Lulu standing on a stool and peering over the rim of the mixing bowl, both hands wrapped firmly around a wooden spoon and a look of pure concentration on her three-year-old face. There's been a part of Lulu in everything that Jenna's baked for years now: sometimes a small helping hand with the beating of the eggs, sometimes a few stubborn fingerprints in the raw pastry, sometimes just the sound of Lulu singing or coloring while she sits at the small table and watches Jenna. Even when Jenna bakes alone, there are Lulu-inspired emotions added to the dishes: pure joy and wonder combining with the sugar and cinnamon in the First Steps Cookies; exhaustion and frustration mixed up with the coffee beans and the meringue in the Why Won't My Baby Sleep Through The Night Pie; pride and loss and a strange relief all churned up with the butter in the Lulu's Starting Kindergarten Tarts. There have been tears in some of the pies too, but never the sort of hopeless tears that came before Lulu, when she baked for Earl. Those days are long gone.</p>
<p>"I'm done!" Lulu announces, stepping out of the kitchen and interrupting Jenna's thoughts. Her apron is covered in splotches of what looks like cream cheese and Jenna thinks there might be part of a strawberry in her hair. "I even cleaned up! Dawn says a clean work surface is a happy work surface."</p>
<p>"She does say that," Jenna agrees, reaching out to hug Lulu, getting ingredients over herself in the process. She can see the kitchen through the door behind them, with swathes of flour and butter smeared on the counters where Lulu has tried to wipe them up. "Great job, honey. When can we eat it?"</p>
<p>"In exactly two and a half hours," Lulu says.</p>
<p>Jenna pretends to consider that carefully. "I reckon that gives us just enough time for a bath and a movie, right?"</p>
<p>Lulu's face lights up. "It does!"</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>“Are your eyes closed?” Lulu checks, exactly two and a half hours later.</p>
<p>“Tightly,” Jenna reassures her from her seat at the table. She hears a soft, satisfied hum from Lulu, then the opening and closing of the refrigerator door, and then the soft clatter of a plate on the table.</p>
<p>“You can open them now,” Lulu says, and when Jenna does, the first thing she sees is Lulu, bouncing slightly on her toes, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her eyes wide with a rare nervousness. The second thing she sees is almost as beautiful: a cheesecake, pale and creamy, encased in an oat cookie crumb base, topped with thick strawberry jelly that’s starting to drip down the sides.  </p>
<p>“Oh, Lulu…” </p>
<p>“Do you like it? Did I do it right? Will you cut it?”</p>
<p>“It looks amazing,” Jenna says, taking a moment to just look at it before she slices into it. “I can’t believe you made it all by yourself.”</p>
<p>Lulu cocks her head to the side. “You always say I can do anything,” she says.</p>
<p>“So I do. Let’s taste it, shall we?”</p>
<p>Jenna takes the first bite. It’s light but creamy, sweet with just a hint of sourness from what she suspects is lemon juice.</p>
<p>“It’s perfect,” she says. Lulu squeals with delight and dips her own spoon into Jenna’s slice. </p>
<p>“The recipe said it was supposed to be light as angel wings,” Lulu says around a mouthful of cake.</p>
<p>“It is,” Jenna says. “What are you gonna call it?” Naming their bakes has always been one of Lulu’s favorite parts.</p>
<p>Lulu swallows and gives her a shy smile. “It’s called My Mom’s an Angel Cheesecake.”</p>
<p>“That’s why you wanted to make it by yourself?” Jenna says, and she’s not crying, but somehow her voice catches anyway. “For me?”</p>
<p>Lulu nods. “I still like baking with you best, though,” she says. “What are we making tomorrow?”</p>
<p>Jenna pulls her close. “We can make anything, sweetheart.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Happy Yuletide, Missy! Thanks for requesting this wonderful fandom!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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